Beatrix Potter would fight National Trust, biographer claims

Beatrix Potter would apparently have been angry at the sale of Thorneythwaite FarmSavills/BNPS

Beatrix Potter’s biographer has criticised the National Trust for betraying the conservation the author worked to establish in the Lake District.

Linda Lear, author of‘Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, said that the writer and committed Herdwick sheep farmer would have been outraged by the trust’s decision to split up a traditional sheep farm in the national park.

The trust has been criticised for paying an inflated sum for the land at Thorneythwaite Farm, Borrowdale, preventing a local farmer from buying the pastures and property to keep it as a traditional lakeland hill farm. The farmhouse has been bought by a couple who are not interested in farming.

Lear said that Potter, author of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, would be outraged that her legacy…